Microsoft changes Gamerscore policies and set rules on achievement points

Recently there has been buzz about the Japanese version of Aquazone, which requires players to spend MS points to unlock extra fish for their Gamerscore. The actual game lets players unlock only 480 points towards their Gamerscore instead of the standard 1000 that most retail Xbox 360 games have. To get the extra fish you have to spend around 5,000 MS points ($62.50) just to get an extra 360 points. Before microtransactions ruin the Gamerscore phenomenon Microsoft is fixing the problem now. Over an announcement posted on the official Xbox blog these rules were set:

1. All regular disc-based games MUST have 1,000 Gamerscore in the base game. This means that any consumer who buys a retail game will have the opportunity to unlock the full 1,000 Gamerscore without having to pay for any add-on content. Note that a publisher may decide to deliver a portion of this Gamerscore via add-on content, but the add-on content will always be free to the consumer.

2. Game publishers will have the option to deliver another 250 incremental Gamerscore on top of the 1,000 via add-on content from Marketplace. This add-on content could be either free or paid. So if you complete a game and earn the full 1,000 GS, you could by getting new add-on content earn up to a total of 1,250 points from a game.

3. Xbox Live Arcade games will operate in similar fashion, but given the size of these titles they will allow you to earn up to 200 Gamerscore from every game and up to another 50 points from add-on content.

Crackdown, which is published by Microsoft, only has 900 Gamerscore points on the disc. The additional 100 points can be unlocked through free content updates.